Passion
by Llowyn Maelai
Summary: In the wake of her revelation about her love for Yato, Hiyori's soul is captured by Fujisaki and his ayakashi. The race is on to find them both, and no one has any clues where to start looking. (Heavy spoilers for the manga up to Chapter 78.2, and diverging from that point. Rated T for typical Noragami violence, but may change as it progresses.)
1. Revelations In The Snow

**A/N** \- During my recent re-read of the manga (Thank god it's coming back!), I had this thought and I needed to get it out.

 _ **Warning** \- _**HUGE** _spoilers for the manga which, as of writing this, is at Chapter 78.2 (yes, point 2). It may only be about 15 pages, but it is extremely important. I would advise not reading this until after you do. Unless you don't care about being spoiled for the canon, in which case, have at it!_

Finally, _Noragami belongs to Adachitoka and Kodansha. I'm just borrowing them for amusement, like everyone else here._

* * *

Long after Bishamon's Hafuri Vessel left her in the snow where he'd physically and emotionally pinned her, she laid motionless, unable to do anything but stare wide-eyed and unseeing.

" _Gods and humans can never be together. Any amount of affection you get from him going forward will never be enough for you again."_

He had cursed her with his own sorrowful, centuries-old realization, threatened her with never coming near Yato again, and then just abandoned her slipped soul to the white icy powder under her back. She hadn't even been able to refute Kazuma's words.

And now that she'd had reality forced into the forefront of her mind's eye, she considered it detachedly.

She'd already known some time ago that she'd fallen for the God of Calamity, but had been trying desperately not to admit it aloud. But those times were over, and it was no use denying them, when a bystander pointed them out, plain as day.

Iki Hiyori was in love with the Yato-gami.

The tears trailed down from the corners of her eyes like a sieve, dripping into her snow-wet dark hair. She didn't even have the will to pick herself up off of the freezing ground; she simply covered her eyes with her arms and let herself cry.

She didn't even realize how long she'd been laying there, until she vaguely felt the cold seep into her ethereal coat and skirt. It took most of her will to sit up then and the rest to stand, her bloodshot eyes dry from the biting wind that had been blowing across her & drying them out.

She inhaled shakily, held her breath for a beat, exhaled, and started her slow trek through the ankle-deep snow back towards the bench she'd left her body seated on. Her mind was blissfully blank, figuratively and physically numb, automatically walking.

Finding her body, she slipped back into it, stood up to stretch her stiff limbs and sneezed from the magnified chill she felt. Turning, she continued her walk back to the station to catch the last Shinkansen back home from Hokkaido. Seated on the train with a hot tea she didn't remember buying, she rested her forehead on the window, the scenery flying past her unseeing eyes.

 _What do I do now?_

Hiyori was good at keeping a secret. This much she knew. After all, how long had she known about God's Greatest Secret, and mentioned nothing about it around any of their shinki, Yukine especially. He was like a little brother to her, or rather she imagined what having a little brother would be like. Absently, she smiled at that stray thought. Her smile vanished just as quickly as it came.

Thinking about Yukine meant thinking of Yato.

She shook her head and took a sip from her cooling tea, and stared at her own reflection in the window. Puffiness under her eyes and wind-chapped cheeks, damp hair and clothing, pale complexion even for her… She was a mess even in her body. Somewhere along the dazed walk, she had begun to cry without even noticing it. Yato would scold her when he-

 _No. I can't think about him right now. I can keep this a secret. It's fine!_

She put her now-uninteresting drink cup on the windowsill and slapped her cheeks a few times, startling the passenger next to and across from her. She had to snap out of it.

She checked the time on her phone and sighed. As fast as the bullet train was, she still had three hours until it arrived in Tokyo. She stretched slightly, then shuddered in her clothing. Wrapping her arms around her to hold in as much warmth as she could, she closed her sore eyes and rested her head back against the window once more.

* * *

Hiyori stirred from her rest when she heard the announcement that they were arriving in Tokyo, and stood slowly from her seat, her neck and shoulders sore from the unnatural position she'd fallen asleep in.

Fifteen minutes later saw her exiting the station and she started the final leg of her trip home. Her mind had been playing silly dreams in her sleep; she reflected on some of the dream snippets she still recalled. All of which involved a stray God with mesmerizing blue eyes and ridiculous fashion sense.

Her mind had retreated into those dreams so far, that she hadn't noticed her feet had already carried her home. She also hadn't noticed the shadow that sat perched on the wall surrounding the property, until it grabbed her by the shoulder & held two fingers like a blade to the back of her neck.

"Yaboku really has you twisted, Hiyori-chan."

Her reflexive reaction was to vacate her soul from her body and take a huge leap away from him, leaving it to slump to the ground as Fujisaki let go of it.

"Good, just what I wanted, lucky me!"

Hiyori felt the hairs on the nape of her hanyou form raise before she even heard the low growling from behind her. She turned to regard four masked ookami-ayakashi stalking up to her from behind, and she chanced a look back at the man.

Who was no longer there.

"This is gonna hurt you more than me, trust me," were the only words of warning before her vision turned stark white and she screamed in horror.

The agony was nothing compared to how it felt that one and only time Yato had yanked her by her Cord, to keep her from being swallowed up. Fujisaki had the end of her Cord firmly in his vice-like grip, and was winding it around his forearm brutally, until he came to the small of her back where it connected. And then he twisted it further, stopping just this side of breaking it clean off.

When her mind could no longer process the level of pain her soul was in, it shut down and she fell limp against him again. Fujisaki instantly uncoiled her Cord from his arm, catching her around her midsection. He placed her on the back of one of the ookami.

"Take her, I'll be along in a minute."

"takE hEr," it managed in it's screeching, multi-octave voice, and they all turned to run off to parts unknown, with the girl on it's back, blight seeping into her cheek that rested on its' shoulder blades.

Fujisaki stooped to pick up Hiyori's discarded body in a bridal carry and lept soundlessly into the tree by her bedroom window. Fortunately her window was unlatched, and he stole into her room, deposited her body gently onto the bed and stood back to regard her.

Truly, he had felt a microscopic something for this mortal, just for a moment. Before he had realized to the extent that her grasp had a hold over Yaboku. He sneered at her soulless body and exited the room the way he came, departing in the direction his masked ones had headed.

Hiyori's phone was left in the courtyard, forgotten, under the tree.

* * *

 **A/N:** Let's see where this goes, shall we?


	2. Spirited Away

**A/N:** _This takes place in tandem with Chapter 78.2, so while there are no spoilers for it specifically, I will warn you again - the first few chapters will drop a lot of spoilers for the manga, upto that point. (I know, I know. Chapter 79 raws are floating around now, but we're diverging from Chapter 78!)_

 _Thanks to Runner for the review, it was a four-cheese melty bun I didn't know I was hungry for. :3_

[Noragami] _belongs to Adachitoka and Kodansha. I'm just borrowing them for amusement._

* * *

When Hiyori finally awoke, she thought she had been blinded, the room around her was so devoid of light. Slowly her eyes adjusted to the near-darkness, wincing as she was prevented from moving her arms by shackles invisible to the naked - and apparently hanyou - eye.

"Five hours, not bad."

Her head wrenched around towards the sound of his voice. Had she been a feline, her hackles would be raised and she would likely have started hissing at him. Instead, she was torn between abject fear and darkening rage. She opted for rage.

"Why am I here, Fujisaki?" she bit out, trying her best not to actually growl at him.

"Aww, what happened to calling me Fujisaki-kun? No, huh?" He chattered at her bemusedly, which sounded less amused and more on the verge of madness.

He stopped laughing abruptly; the silence was terrifying. She kept herself still, not allowing the glare leave her eyes and simply waited for him to answer.

"You're an eyesore, Hiyori-chan," he whispered contemptuously. "The way you fawn over Yaboku and his _hafuri shinki_ , it's disgusting, yanno?"

"Why. Am. I. He-".

"Because Yaboku needs to learn his place!" he snapped, slamming the bottom of his fist into the wall beside him, cratering it slightly and sending spiderweb cracks outward from the epicenter. His eyes flashed with something otherworldly, then returned to being their human-esque shade.

She flinched from the sound in spite of herself and he arched a brow at her, smirking. "And because I actually hate you," he added as an afterthought, his tone taking a dark edge. "This is more for him than it is for you or me."

He stood up then and started walking slowly over to her. "Well, maybe it is a little bit for us, to be honest. It's no secret that I'm a sadist," he admitted. "And you have got to be one of the biggest masochists I've ever seen."

He had stopped less than a foot away from her prone form, and settled his hands on his narrow hips. "What human in their right mind willingly puts themselves through the hell you have been, especially for selfish and detestable gods?" he questioned, the disgust on his visage was tinged with a smattering of wonder and a few threads of grudging respect, if only for a moment.

She did her best to inch away from him, despite being bound as she was. Before she could get too far he crouched down, grabbed her by the hair at her scalp and stood up abruptly.

A whimper slipped out from the pain, and his smile widened just a little. "I lost my Mizuchi. Some dirty brat of Bishamon's cursed her, so I had to cast her away," he pretended to lament, dragging the teenager along behind him like a rag doll, ignoring her sounds of agony.

"But don't you worry about me, Hiyori-chan," he dropped her unceremoniously in the middle of the room, and stomped down on her faded Cord with the heel of his shoe. She screamed again, her voice careening upwards into her falsetto as she writhed on the floor. Fujisaki smiled down at her again, reveling in her pain. "I have a pretty awesome idea, you wanna hear it?"

"No," she ground out through the pain and tears.

He continued on as if she hadn't said anything. "I'm gonna try something that no one ever has - I'm gonna make a living spirit into an ayakashi! All the kids are doing it. It'll be fun, whaddaya say?"

He didn't give her the chance to respond, before pulling a slip of parchment from one pocket, and the Yomi-no-Koto-no-Ha from the other and painted something she couldn't see from her prone position.

"Oki," he stated, and a small green-speckled magenta snake ayakashi appeared from the paper, circling around his wrist. "Off you go, now!"

"oFf!" it squeaked, and sailed towards Hiyori lazily.

From behind the doorway of that closed little room, an unnaturally high-pitched human scream and a deeper maniacal laughter could be heard for a half city block, by Far Shore and Near Shore denizens alike.

It's too bad no one was around to hear it.

* * *

Yukine was worried.

Ever since Yato and he had started to take almost full-time refuge with Kofuku and Daikoku, Hiyori had stopped by to visit, even just for an hour, every day. Only twice had she been absent from the shrine and shop for more than a few days, and never without a lot of prior notice. Even after Yato had left on his suicide mission, she had still popped in each day to check in, picking up his previous days' 'homework' and to drop off more assignments.

She hadn't been by for three days now.

He tried calling her this afternoon, but her phone was going straight to voicemail. The frown deepened on his face and his brows furrowed. The automated message had finished telling him calmly that the recipient of the call either had their phone turned off or was out of the area, and to please leave a message after the beep. He hung up and had to tamp down on the pinprick of panic that had started to bloom in his chest.

 _Stop it_. For all he knew, she was on a school trip and had her phone turned off. What was the point in worrying needlessly and jumping to conclusions? He ran a hand through his short strands, persimmon-tinted eyes closing.

 _Because that jersey-god is useless as usual_ , he groused mentally, his earlier apprehension turning to derision. He exhaled forcefully through his nose, and moved quickly towards the door, turning his head towards the front of the house. "I'm going out for a bit, Daikoku-san!"

Yukine took note of the muffled acknowledgement, slipped into his hunter green fur-lined coat and made his way towards Hiyori's house. All he needed to do was check in on her and see how she was doing. Maybe she was just cramming for a big test for the end of the term. He hoped that's all it was.

Could she have forgotten them?

He shook his blonde locks violently, as if to eradicate the very notion. No, Yato had been gone for a few weeks the last time before Hiyori forgot about them. It had only been a handful days this time. "Hiyori wouldn't forget so quickly," he muttered to himself, weaving in and around the people on the streets effortlessly. He hoped that stray thought hadn't stung Yato.

Actually, no. Yukine hoped fervently that Yato felt the sting and that it ate a giant patch of his stupid face. He clicked his tongue behind his teeth; Yato deserved it, wherever the hell he was.

"Asshole," he spat to no one in particular, and picked up his pace.

* * *

Yukine slipped into the house just behind Hiyori's father and padded silently away from the door. He sighed to himself, thankful for a moment to be in the brightly-lit house and not outside at dusk. The blonde had been on his way towards her room when a comment from the living room caught his ear.

"How was she?" Hiyori's mother asked, voice clearly painted with varying shades of concern and barely suppressed worry.

 _Why would she be worried about Hiyori?_ Yukine crept closer to the doorway arch, leaning against the wall, eavesdropping unabashedly.

"Her vitals are still weak but consistent." There was a pause, where Yukine's chest squeezed. "She's a fighter, dear. She'll come back to us, have faith."

Both Yukine and Hiyori's mother took silent note of the wavering in her father's voice.

That was all he needed to hear. Yukine bolted up the stairs towards his friend's room and yanked the door open, flipping on the bedroom light. Yukine could tell in an instant that she hadn't been there in days from the lack of vibrant warmth that was unmistakably Hiyori. The staleness of the air was poignant, missing the faint whispers of citrus that seemed to follow her like a shadow everywhere she was.

 _Dammit, Yato!_ Why did that stupid god have to pick now, of all times, to vanish without a trace? The one saving grace this time, was that he knew for sure that Yato wasn't with Nora. That did little to comfort the hafuri.

Yukine snapped the light off before bounding down the stairs and out of the house, so caught up in his desire to find his friend that he paid no attention to the dark of night around him. There were more important things at stake than his fear of the dark right now.

He cast his sights in the direction of the hospital and took off at full tilt.

 _Please be okay, Hiyori…_

* * *

 **A/N:** _I had to take a step back on this story for a bit, because I didn't like the chapter flow I had mapped out. Originally, this chapter was going to be the next one and vice versa. When we get to the next chapter, I hope you'll agree with the decision, but I'll be glad to know if you don't, too._


	3. God's Advent

**A/N:** _Sorry for the ginormous delay on this one; I admit that almost all of this was finished a while ago, but it took until now to complete the edits and slight tweaks. Life smashed me in the face recently, but I digress. This is another big spoiler chapter for the manga. I'm sure you're tired of the warnings - this'll be the last of its kind, since we're really going to be diverging from here._

 _Thanks for the feedback, I always appreciate it. I love the good and I can take the bad._

[ **Noragami** ] _belongs to Adachitoka and Kodansha. I wish they were mine..._

* * *

Yato was falling.

He snapped his eyes over to a nearby rooftop, zeroing in on his long-time benefactor and drinking buddy. "Oi, Kazuma! Draw a line against these! Can you hear me?!"

 _Use me!_ was the clear message, returned with a serious glare through sturdy black frames.

A grunt escaped his lips when a small fry sank it's fangs into his arm. He clicked his tongue in disgust, narrowed his eyes and made a two-fingered blade, the tips of which began to glow.

" _You, with nowhere to go and nowhere to return, I grant you a place to belong."_

He began weaving his fingers in the air, a trail of divinity appearing with each stroke of the kanji.

" _My name is Yato. Bearing a posthumous name, you shall remain here._

" _Thy name is its reading, thy vessel its sound."_

As Yato was about to finish tracing the character, Kazuma closed his eyes, took a deep breath and kissed the kanji on his right hand; the only one he had had for ages. The only one he ever really wanted to bear.

But these were desperate times that called for desperate measures. _Veena…_

" _Thy Name is Kazu. Thy Vessel is Reki."_

Kazuma's body began to fade. With a gasp, he vanished from view and shot like a beam towards the Yatogami.

"Just get the hell over here, **REKKI**!"

Enveloped in a bright flash of light, Yato saw the remnants of Kazuma's life and learned his true name. It was the single most difficult, and worst possible thing about making a Regalia, and it always left him reeling from the sheer agony. But he would have to mourn later.

Right now, they had work to do.

* * *

Between the two, it was hardly worth calling the purification a cakewalk. Yato found himself absently wondering at just how perfect a fit his new shinki was, and how effortless it had been to acclimate to his arsenal.

Yukine would always be his exemplar and most favorite, but there was something heady about receiving a katana that also served as a longbow. As if that hadn't been enough, Rekki also provided him with divine garments in soft black leather gloves, white-edged high tops and an impressive long-tailed scarf that wrapped around his head, covering his right eye, forcing his left to become sharper when aiming. Deadly aim did seem to be a forte of this shinki.

How many centuries had it been since one of his shinki wasn't some kind of blade alone? Had he ever even _had_ a shinki that was a divine garment? Was this the result of taking another God's hafuri as his own shinki, or was it because Kazune was just that formidable a spirit?

"You really saved me, Kazune," he muttered from his crouched position, smiling sadly, feeling the tears already starting to dry on his cheek. He curled a gloved digit and wiped the errant drop on the back of his knuckle, stood upright and shoved the free hand not holding Rekki's ornate saya into the pocket of his jersey.

' _Yato,'_ came the faintly labored voice, trying to catch its' breath, echoing in his head.

"Revert, Kazune," Yato sighed tiredly, letting his drinking-buddy-turned-nora coalesce back into his familiar form down on the street. He stepped off of the telephone pole he had been perched on, alighting to the ground softly despite the solidity of his heavy-soled boots.

"Yato-" Kazuma started again, but he wasn't given any chance to continue.

"You realize we're both fucked twice over if this ever gets out, right?" Yato narrowed those impossibly blue eyes at the brunette. "Not only is that psycho bitch gonna skin you alive ten ways from Wednesday and Yukine will blight me to death, but they'll never forgive either of us."

"I regret nothing. It was the right course of action," Kazuma held his ground, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose, fixing his master and patron saint with a cool glance.

Yato's stance was relaxed, hands crammed into the front pockets of his jacket, one hip jutted out to the side slightly, his chin tucked into the ratty scarf around his neck that did nothing to protect his throat from Winter's bite.

His eyes however, were anything but. He fixed their sharp slits on the other man he'd known for countless years, a scowl turning his lips downwards at the corners.

" _ **I**_ regret it! Y'practically forced me into making you a fucking nora. You're better'n that!" he snapped. Then sighed. "Then again, I've known you were a selfish ass for a long time." He shoved both of his hands into his hair and rubbed his scalp vigorously. "Ah man, what a pain!" Yato turned suddenly and started stomping away, clearly irritated by this turn of events.

Kazuma said nothing. It was well documented just how strong he was as Bishamonten's hafuri and exemplar. He knew how to manage things; Hell, he managed a War God of Fortune. Being able to suppress his innermost feelings to avoid stinging his master took little effort. Yato would be no different.

"Be that as it may," he said instead, keeping perfect pace with the god he now served as they ducked into an alleyway. "Our goals are the same. Now maybe you can tell me exactly what's going on with-"

"Nope," Yato whirled around and stuck his finger right into Kazuma's face, which brought the younger man to a sudden stop. "I dun' owe you bupkiss. You trapped me into this…" he pointed back and forth between them a few times, " _... **this**_. You're gonna do as I say and play by my rules without complaint. Capische?"

An overly dramatic sigh forced its way from the newly-minted nora, who raised his hands placatingly. "Alright, Yato. Fine," he adjusted his glasses once again and folded his arms over his chest. "What's the plan?"

Yato stood there, narrowing his piercing gaze at his shinki. He tucked his hands back into their pockets, leaning against the brick wall of the alleyway. One leg bent slightly to prop a booted sole a foot off the ground. "What else aren't you telling me?"

Kazuma's eyes widened ever-so-slightly for a moment.

 _Bingo._

"Nothing of consequence," he began.

Yato "tsk"ed, closing the eye furthest away from him, providing Kazuma with his face in profile, that eerily bright eye searing into him sidelong. "Try again."

The sudden suffocation of Yato's aura was unexpected and he almost choked on it. Bishamonten could do that too, but this… This was a completely different, physically uncomfortable feeling.

Kazuma stood there for several moments, the encounter with Hiyori playing over in his mind at high speeds. He'd attacked the girl on a snowy rooftop two days ago, going as far as to hurling Borderlines at her, knocking the hanyou off the rooftop and into the drift below. He'd had her pinned, and emotionally broke her.. Threatened her..

"Iki-san almost found you" - he noticed Yato's whole body tense up - "but I sent her away," he swallowed, proud of himself for not letting his voice crack.

"When?" Yato choked out, his eyes shrouded by the dark strands that curtained them.

"Two days ago."

"Good," he said absently. "Okay," his voice was quiet, but his shoulders were still tense.

"How… How was she?" Yato questioned, sounding for all the world like a wounded ex-boyfriend. Kazuma filed that away to analyze later.

"She seemed hurt by what I said, but-".

Kazuma hadn't even seen Yato move and had to take a step back to balance himself when the god had him gripped roughly by the lapels of his crisp red-edged black jacket.

"What did you tell her, _Kazune_?!" The heat that radiated from his eyes and his whole countenance was stifling. Yato had used his new name like a threat of pain. The phrase "Wrath of God" flitted across his inner vision.

In that moment, Kazuma decided that Veena's anger had nothing on Yato.

Yato winced, rolling his neck slightly, then slammed the shinki into the wall. "I should cast you out for stinging me just now," he spat acidly. " _What._ Did. You. _**Tell.** Her_?" he ground out slowly. Dangerously.

"I told her to stay away from you, for both of your own good!" Kazuma blurted out, eyes screwed shut behind his frames. A half-truth; he excelled at those, too.

All gods seemed to have some level of innocence to them, because Yato took his words at face value and let him go. The newly sanctioned vessel let the breath he'd been holding out of his lungs, then set to the busywork of straightening his jacket.

"When this is all over, I'm gonna let Yukine, Daikoku and Mayu 'beat' you," Yato promised, and Kazuma didn't refute it. In fact, he would have insisted on it himself, if the deity hadn't done so first.

"I'd expect nothing less."

* * *

Two days after turning Kazuma into his shinki and making tentative plans for reconnaissance, the two men parted ways for the time being. Yato knew Kazuma - _Kazune,_ he corrected himself mentally - had been itching to check on the psycho bitch, and he wasn't really in the mood to have the man around at the moment anyway, so they agreed to a twenty-four hour respite.

Which is how Yato found himself in Hiyori's yard in the dead of night, trying to ignore the feeling of something feeling _off_ and _not quite right_.

There was a three inch sheet of snow on the ground, and a distinct lack of footsteps which disturbed him. It seemed like no one had been on this side of the yard, which put him both at ease and on alert simultaneously.

He already had his cellphone out and flipped open, poised to hit the speed dial button for her. Before he followed through with the action, something near the tree caught his attention. He stepped carefully over to the base and looked down. The corner of a smartphone stared lifelessly up at him.

He bent down slowly to pick it out of the snow, breath lodged in his chest as the powder fell away to display the cracked face, snowmelt dripping slowly from the corner closest to the ground.

Her phone. Left in the snow. Broken.

His heart seized up in his chest.

He was instantly in her room through the still unlocked window, frantically casting his gaze around for her. His mind knew she wasn't there - she wouldn't leave her phone outside - but his heart staunchly refused to believe it.

His eyes zeroed in on his mini-shrine, tucked carefully onto her bookshelf, nestled between a dictionary and a math textbook. His eyes raked across it, taking note of every minute detail. Hiyori had done as he'd asked and repaired the shrine. Despite the terror coiling in his stomach, he smiled at the paint retouches and the almost imperceptible use of glue at some of the roof joints.

Yato gripped the shattered phone, deciding that his course of action was still valid, then tucked it gently into an inner pocket of his jacket for safe keeping. The chances that Hiyori had left of her own volition were slim to none, and Slim just walked out the door.

The vice around his heart loosened. In its place, a cold fire erupted in his veins.

* * *

 **A/N:** _I'm sorry if the timing between these two chapters seems kind of disjointed. There are three 'scenes' happening over the course of the timeline so far, so there's a little backtracking involved. I might make some adjustments later, but I'll warn you at the start of next chapter if I do. Also, I did take the liberty of combining the anime and scanlation translations for the "shinki creation" 'spell'. If you noticed some variation, that's why.  
_

 _So far I've been able to avoid reading past the chapter that part of this one is pulled from. I'll read it eventually, but I don't want it to influence the story I have in mind. At least, not yet._

 _ **PS -**_ _It was pointed out that 'Father' seemed a little too violent and OOC in the last chapter. Think about it though - His plans are going awry, Yato is defying him at every turn, and now he's lost Mizuchi. Not to mention, he's always been a sadistic psychopath_ [ドーS] _. I agree that he's a little less canon, but I feel justified with the level of crazy that I wrote him for that chapter._

 _Keep the comments and conversation going, though. I'm not opposed to making adjustments when warranted._ ^^


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